Gus Malzahn hired as Auburn football coach

Garner, a highly respected recruiter in SEC territory, has served at Georgia since 1998, but will leave the Bulldogs staff to join the new staff at Auburn under head coach Gus Malzahn, who was hired at the start of this month to replace Gene Chizik. Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs broke the news Thursday night.

Garner coached at Auburn immediately after his playing days, serving in many roles including recruiting coordinator in the early 1990s.

A day after Auburn named Gus Malzahn as its head coach, the search turns to filling the rest of the staff. One name that came up on Wednesday is former South Carolina defensive coordinator and Southern Miss head coach Ellis Johnson.

Johnson was fired after one season with the Golden Eagles after the team plummeted to an 0-12 record in 2012. He was hired away last season from South Carolina after having some success as Steve Spurrier’s DC, so his SEC experience is likely a selling point to join Malzahn’s new staff.

When virtually the entire starting offense departed after 2010, however, head coach Gene Chizik seemed to choose the stars over the system. He allegedly reined in offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn a bit and, a year later, replaced him altogether with more of a pro-style coordinator.

According to the narrative, after all, you can draw more blue-chippers with a “pro-style” system. Strong recruiting continued apace; Auburn’s 2011 class ranked seventh according to Rivals.com, its 2012 class ranked 10th, and its 2013 class currently ranks 10th despite some defections following Chizik’s firing. But the identity vanished. Auburn seemingly had no idea what it wanted to be offensively, and in the two years since Newton’s departure, the Tigers ranked 57th in Off. F/+ in 2011 (Malzahn’s final season) and 111th in 2012.

Jeremy Johnson, a top quarterback and Auburn commitment out of Carver High School is excited. Malzahn’s spread-run attack fits his skills perfectly.

He stayed true to his word Tuesday.

The Auburn coaching search, which came down to Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart and Auburn coach Gus Malzahn, has settled on former Tigers offensive coordinator Malzahn, SB Nation has been told. The news was first reported by the Scout.com ASU site.

I think Malzahn is the right choice, and certainly better for Auburn’s immediate future than Smart would’ve been. His offenses were successful in 2009 and 2010, and VERY successful with Cam Newton at the helm, but fell off somewhat in 2011 as turmoil built up around the Plains. He took a pay cut to leave for Arkansas State, where he ran the No. 17 total offense in the country and won the Sun Belt title.

The first of the three major SEC football programs to hire a new head coach might be the one that waited the longest to officially begin its search, as Auburn announces we’ll know the next Tigers coach by Wednesday afternoon.

SB Nation was told Monday that Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart is the leader for the job, with Arkansas State coach Gus Malzahn also in the running, while 247Sports reports Tuesday that order has flipped. (Though I think they should hire Malzahn.)

Last week, SB Nation reported UCLA coach Jim Mora is a target on Auburn’s coaching candidates list. (Auburn’s since been unable to land an interview, we’re told.) The rest of the Pac-12 reportedly hasn’t escaped Auburn’s eye, however, with Bruce Feldman adding Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez’s name to the list.

That would make approximately one million Auburn coaching candidates. We’ve been told Kirby Smart and Gus Malzahn are the current leading candidates, and I feel Malzahn’s the clear choice out of those two.

Smarter people than me have written a lot about underdog tactics. Simply put, the side without the advantages has to resort to things.

In the state of Alabama and the SEC, the Tide have the advantages. Even though Auburn has one of the nation’s biggest athletic departments, has an enormous fan base and is often capable of producing teams better than Bama’s, it’s still decidedly an underdog. And that’s fine. Underdogs can win.

Auburn fired coach Gene Chizik on Nov. 25 after leading the team to a 3-9 overall record. The Tigers were 0-8 in the Southeastern Conference, prompting a change for a team that won the BCS National Championship just two years ago with Cam Newton at quarterback.

Morris has been Clemson’s offensive coordinator for the last two seasons. He was also the O.C. at Tulsa for a year before his stint at Clemson. He was a high school football coach in Texas for 16 years, according to NBC Sports’ College Football Talk.

If I make a billion dollars, I’m gonna buy a private plane just to fly from college town to college town every November in hopes of catching a desperate message board’s eye (message boards have eyes).

If that’s what somebody’s done here, in making it appear that someone from Auburn is flying to interview Boise State’s Chris Petersen after visiting Arkansas State’s Gus Malzahn and TCU’s Gary Patterson, then kudos abound. And if Auburn fans figured out exactly who Auburn’s interviewing thanks to FlightAware, then kudos there too.

One under-the-radar name is UCLA’s Jim Mora, whom we’re told the boosters like in part due to his NFL experience. From Spencer Hall’s report:

Mora gave himself a job-hopping reputation when he pined for a Pac-12 spot while in the NFL, so it’s hard to say whether he’d leave the Bruins after a single season. Especially since he’s a west coast guy -- he has no SEC experience, and neither did his dad. There’s also, you know, Auburn’s NCAA stuff.

The 51-year old Petrino was 34-17 in four seasons as head coach of Arkansas. He was fired before the start of the 2012 season for his involvement in a scandal in which he used his position to procure a job for his mistress, a former Razorbacks volleyball player. Prior to joining Arkansas, Petrino was head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. He left Atlanta with three games left in the 2007 season to take the Arkansas job, leading to widespread outrage.

Petrino has ties to the Auburn program, having served as offensive coordinator for Tommy Tuberville in 2002. He left after one season on the plains to take the head coaching job at Louisville. Petrino was also considered for the Auburn job in 2003, when he secretly interviewed for the position despite the fact that Tuberville was still employed by the Tigers.

Louisville head football coach Charlie Strong has reportedly interviewed for the open coaching job at Auburn, according to AL.com. Strong has a 23-15 overall record in three seasons at Louisville. The Cardinals are 9-2 this season and briefly flirted with BCS National Championship contention after starting the season with nine consecutive wins. It was the best start in program history, eclipsing undefeated eight-game seasons in 1947 and 1925.

Strong has vehemently denied that he interviewed with Auburn:

Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher, Arkansas State coach Gus Malzahn, TCU coach Gary Patterson and former Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino are the four coaches that are reportedly in the running, three of whom have experience with Auburn.

Fisher, Malzahn and Petrino each served as assistant coaches at Auburn during their coaching careers, while Patterson is the only one without Auburn or SEC experience. Malzahn was the offensive coordinator during the 2010 season that resulted in a BCS Championship before accepting the Arkansas State head coaching job in December 2011.

After an 8-4 regular season, Vanderbilt head football coach James Franklin’s name has been mentioned in association with almost every major job opening in the country, but specifically with each of the three current SEC openings at Arkansas, Tennessee and Auburn. How serious a candidate Franklin is for each job might depend solely on Vanderbilt’s next move.

When contacted for comment on Tuesday while recruiting in Memphis, Franklin declined to discuss any matter specific to SEC openings or his future at Vanderbilt. Sources close to the program indicated that while Franklin is in heavy demand at the moment, there have been indications that Franklin and his staff want to stay with the Commodores in 2013.

Auburn recruited quite well during Gene Chizik’s tenure. His last three recruiting classes were all within the consensus top 10. For the most part, bringing in talent was not a problem for Auburn under Chizik’s tenure.

It’s hard not to wonder, however, if Auburn sometimes didn’t do its due diligence or ignored character issues in order to secure talent. The problems of 2011 and 2012 are in large part on the coaching staff, but Auburn certainly had its fair share of bad actors. Auburn does risk having an image problem, and as tempting as it will be for the new coach to ignore character and improve the talent level as fast as possible, he really shouldn’t. Bringing back the “family” feel that Auburn loves to sell has to be one of the important goals of the new War Eagle coach, and recruiting has a lot to do with that.

In the aftermath of Auburn’s firing of Gene Chizik, many fans around the country are asking which recruits plan to stick with Auburn and which may elect to move on. That’s a tough question, but it makes sense to assume that players who were already looking around will continue to do so. It’s also relatively safe to assume that players who never wavered from their commitment to Auburn during the disastrous 2012 season will probably stick.

I’ll get to the players with shaky commitments, but first, news came Sunday night that Jaquay Williams, a receiver who had already been wavering, decommitted. Williams had a long relationship with Auburn, having signed there last season and failing to qualify before heading to Georgia Military Academy, a prep school.

However, this story gets interesting because later Sunday, Irvin-Sills claims to not have decommitted. To whom did he make this claim? Why Rivals, of course:

”I’m still committed to Auburn, I’m not decommitted. I’m not sure, I’m going to take visits to Ole Miss, West Virginia and Auburn. My plan is to wait and see who they hire and then go from there, but I’m still committed.“Chris Anderson of 247sports is one of many who believe Irvin-Sills will not be an Auburn Tiger come signing day.

Williams removed his status as an Auburn commitment from his Twitter profile, and his guardian spoke with Kipp Adams of ESPN:

“Jaquay Williams is decommitting, officially,” said his legal guardian, who also said he wished to remain anonymous. “Texas A&M, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi State, and Oklahoma State are on the current list. And Auburn is still in the mix.“Williams is a consensus four-star recruit out of Tyrone (Ga.). He has offers from all over the Southeastern Conference, plus a few ACC and Big 12 schools. He recently made visits to Texas A&M and Georgia. The latter of which would seem to be the early favorite in the hours following his decommitment, due to distance and the Bulldogs’ recent momentum on the recruiting trail, but he is far from a lock to Georgia.

Auburn has fired 2010 coach of the year award-winner Gene Chizik, according to Bruce Feldman, after a woeful 2012 campaign that’s seen the Tigers rank among the country’s worst teams in almost every major category, drop SEC games against multiple teams with far fewer resources and lesser expectations, accrued multiple NCAA investigations (one ongoing), come within an overtime field goal of losing a Sun Belt game, get blasted off the field by archrival Alabama and finish without a single conference win. In all, Auburn became the worst team two years removed from a national title in college football history.

Said Chizik in a statement, “When expectations are not met, I understand changes must be made. I’m extremely disappointed with the way this season turned out and I apologize to the Auburn family and our team for what they have had to endure.”

Auburn president Jay Gogue is considering firing head coach Gene Chizik after the conclusion of the 2012 season, according to reports, and it might come soon after the final game. Tigers football is going through a nightmare season just two years removed from a national championship, and many are calling for Chizik’s head, as the program has declined sharply after the departure of Heisman winner and No. 1 pick Cam Newton.

The move could come quickly, and Auburn officials are already looking into the process, as reported by by 247sports.com, via the Sporting News: